Nonprofits present their needs to area legislators

Silver City’s nonprofit organizations presented their needs late last year at the Prospectors’ Legislative Forum. Now that the Legislature is in session, they are hoping that their requests didn’t fall on deaf ears.

Silver City MainStreet

Charmeine Wait, director of Silver City MainStreet, outlined MainStreet’s needs and priority for the near future with the completion of Main Street Plaza, a multipurpose event and community gathering space where the Silver City Farmers’ Market is held, with public restrooms, parking and a space to hold public events.

She said the infrastructure project has been included in five separate economic development plans and the town receives 25 street closure requests a year, illustrating the need for an event space.

She said MainStreet is currently working on completing phase one, which will be the public restrooms. The funding they have right now is $62,000 from Freeport-McMoRan and $30,000 from the town of Silver City. The town will put in another $35,000 for construction, and MainStreet has $73,600 in New Mexico MainStreet capital outlay funding. The total cost of the project, which will include two more phases, will be $365,000.

Grant County Community Health Council

The Grant County Community Health Council wasn’t asking for funding per se. Last year, Grant County was the last county in the state to have a full-time coordinator. During that time, they completed the community assessment, but that has not been put together yet. With no more funding for employees, the group asked for support on Senate Memorial 44, which creates a task force to look at health councils across the state and how they work and might be improved.

Mimbres Region Arts Council

Executive Director Kevin Lenkner updated then-District 28 state Sen. Howie Morales and District 38 state Rep. Rebecca Dow on the progress on the idea of a center for the arts, and let them know the Arts Council now has a portfolio of six programs they provide to the schools for free, and was going to be partnering with MainStreet on a newly revamped Arts and Cultural District.

Morales applauded the success of the school-based programs and said that brings the arts — including dance and music — back into the public school system. He also complimented the Arts Council’s stickers that said, “Make great art and fantastic mistakes.”

Community Partnership for Children

Members of the Community Partnership for Children asked for support on a $300,000 appropriation for 2020 and 2021.

Imagination Library of Grant County

Barb and Loren Nelson presented on the success of the Imagination Library of Grant County and requested support on the House Bill 2 amendment to increase funding for early childhood literacy.

In Grant County, since 2015, the number of children enrolled in the program has grown from 4,855 to 10,943 with more than 5,400 new registrations.

The program has now also grown to be in 18 counties.

Morales thanked the couple for their dedication.

“Not only do the results show, but I remember you guys at every fiesta, every festival, at every event you had your little pop-up tent there signing people up, and that tells me that you are willing to get out there and do the work and it shows,” he said. “As an educator, there’s never a better act than sitting and learning and reading on your parent’s lap.”

Barb said they have been invited to festivals in other counties, and were in Quay County at their Fired Up Festival and had registered 115 children in one afternoon in Tucumcari.

Bell said she had attended a national historic landmarks meeting in Denver, where all the talk was about partnerships. She said the group has been forming its own partnerships and is working with local Apaches and an African American group in Albuquerque and both had said they would like to have space at Fort Bayard and she asked if the group could get access to building No. 25.

Dinwiddie updated Morales and Dow on a new visitor center that will be opening in the old armory in Santa Clara in conjunction with the village, so people can learn about Fort Bayard when the museum there is not open. He said the group got a grant from PNM that Dave Chandler wrote, and hopes to open in February. They also hosted 60 students for tours, and the Upward Bound students wanted to return, camp out and do local historic and environmental work.

The group asked for $132,000 for a heating system for the historic New Deal Theater.

“Our organization still strongly supports the transfer of the property to Santa Clara,” Dinwiddie said.

Morales asked Dinwiddie to make sure to contact the New Mexico Department of Transportation to get signs placed on the highway to let people know about the visitor center. He also asked who would be staffing it.

Dinwiddie said volunteers and village employees.

Tour of the Gila

Jack Brennan, race director of the Tour of the Gila, talked about the success of the race and the results of studies that show the economic impact of the racers on Grant County. He asked for funding to help support the operation of the race.